











1* 



i»o. 



^ 






* ^ 



^ <£ °» K/ ^^ 







^^ V 






• 

7o 



^ 




" » 



^ 



:<^5ta& 



» 

WJ 



^ 






^o 



A 






V. 



<\ 



o 
o 




















P++ 




<£ * 






^A & * 

6 ***** 





k ^ o « « - * 








< 







No. 8. (^ Serial. Price, 10 



THE 



PULPIT AND ROSTRUM. 



Jtotira*, #rMi«, gopulin' %u\%%t%, to,, 

I PHONOGRAPHICALLY REPORTED BY ANDREW J. GRAHAM AND CHAS. B. COLLAR. 



_ 



'' 






Daniel Webster, 

AN ORATION, 



BY THE 



HON. EDWARD EVERETT, 



ON THE OCCASION OF THE 



JMtatttou of the Jfatiw of P*. Witotev, l« ^tan, 

September 17th, 1859. 



NEW YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY II. H. LLOYD & CO., 

12 Appleton's Building, No. 348 Broadway. 

October 15th, 1859. 



5T U 

THE PULPIT AND ROSTRUM, 

AN ELEGANT SERIAL IN PAMPHLET FORM, 

CONTAINS 

PHONOGRAPHIC IREDPOIRTS 

OF THE BEST 

SERMONS, POPULAR LECTURES, 

ORATIONS, ETC. 
ANDREW J. GRAHAM and CHARLES B. COLLAR, 

Reporters and Editors. 

TWELVE NUMBERS, $1 00 IN ADVANCE ; SINGLE NUMBER, 10 CENTS. 

*-►-* 

The special object in the publication of this Serial, is to preserve in convenient 
form the best thoughts of our most gifted men, just as they come from their lips ; 
thus retaining their freshness and personality. Great favor has already been shown 
the work, and its long continuance is certain. Tbe successive numbers will be 
issued as often as Discourses worthy a place in the Serial can be found ; out of the 
many reported, we hope to elect twelve each year. 



EIGHT NUMBERS ARE READY. 

No. 8.— EDWARD EVERETT'S ORATION at the Inauguration of the Statue 
of Daniel Webster, at Boston, Sept. 17, 1859. This is justly regarded as one of 
Mr. Everett's greatest efforts. 

No. 7.— COMING TO CHRIST. The last sermon in the celebrated Academy of 
Music Course. By Rev. Henry Martin Scudder, M.D., D.D., Missionary to India. 

No. 6.— THE TRIBUTE TO HUMBOLDT ; being the interesting and scholarly 
Addresses on the career of the great Cosmopolitan, by Hon. Geo. Bancroft, Rev. 
Dr. Thompson, Profs. Aoassiz, Lieber, Bache, and Guyot. 

No. 5. — The Great Sermon of Rev. A. Kingman Nott (recently deceased), on 
JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION, delivered in the Academy of Music, New 
York, February 13, 1859. 

No. 4.— THE PROGRESS AND DEMANDS OF CHRISTIANITY. By the Rev. 
Wm. H. Milburn (the blind preacher). With an interesting Biographical Sketch. 

No. 3. — The eloquent Discourse of Prof. 0. M. Mitchell, of the Cincinnati Obser- 
vatory, on the GREAT UNFINISHED PROBLEMS OF THE UNIVERSE. 

No. 2.— The celebrated Addresses of the Rev. Henry Ward Bkecher and James 
T. Brady, Esq., on MENTAL CULTURE FOR WOMEN. 

No. 1.— The Rev. T. L. Cuyler's Sermon on CHRISTIAN RECREATION AND 
UNCHRISTIAN AMUSEMENT. 



Numbers aio promptly mailed from the office, on receipt of the price. 

H. H. LLOYD & CO., Publishers, 
ia Appictou'* Building, :as Broaftway, New Tork. 



177 179 

.me. Themistocles 

.micus; and when the 

. Felton], have alluded, 

DANIEL W E B ed to rebuke and exhort 

a a hundred years have 

___ ,way ; hut from age to age 

pel of Trinity College, will 

med of him by hundreds and 

Oration delivered by the Hon. Edward Ever^^ w ^ reverence for that 

of the Statue of Mr. Webster, m he phenomena that fall within 

erial law by which the Sover- 
Mat it please Your ExoELLENcvse. We can never look on the 
On behalf of those by whose ene and noble countenance, per- 
Webster has been procured, aiviisel, is familiar to far greater mul- 
the care of its erection, it is \ ,\ >ing presence, and will be thus 
through you to the i ire of tn 

ackn owledgments fi* ti ii *sion kin^ount Auburn or to Bun- 

the Statue in <& e Public Grounds. We feefb' mouumental statues, 
iiental work to be erected in front of thltriotism, for science, 
a distinguished nonor has been paid to the memdi e bids him con- 
To you, sir, in particular, whose influence was l'j-hrop, who left 
ed to promote this result, and whose personal attenu w republic in 
ticipation have added so much to the interest of the'\ O^ 8 ) w ^° 
under the highest obligations. that noble 

To yot^ our distinguished guests, and to you, fellow-cf res , s i °* 
either sex, who come to unite with us in rendering the °f that 
mental honors, who adorn the occasion with your prese? starry 
cheer us with your countenance and favor, we tender a re abroad 
and grateful welcome. ^y, of 

To you, also, Mr. Mayor, and to the City Council, we returi^ m 
cordial thanks for your kind consent to act on our behalf, in ("nies 
ering this cherished memorial of our honored fellow-citizen int JUS J 
custody of the Commonwealth, and for your sympathy and a: in S e 
ance in the duties of the occasion. the 

It has been the custom, from the remotest antiquity, to pref cau 
and to hand down to posterity, in bronze and in marble, the cteu- 
terfeit presentment of illustrious men. Within the last few m — 
modern research has brought to light, on the banks of the T her 
huge slabs of alabaster, buried for ages, which exhibit in relie but 
faces and the persons of men who governed the primeval E* euer 
the gray dawn of History. Three thousand years have el P au ' 
since they lived and reigned, and built palaces, and fortified < u > °t 
and waged war, and gained victories, of which the trophitPted ; 
carved upon these monumental tablets — the triumphal procel anc * 
the chariots laden with spoil, the drooping captive, the conq'bools 
monarch in chains, — but the legends inscribed upon the ston have 
imperfectly deciphered, and little beyond the names of the pe'- 
ages, and the most general tradition of their exploits is prese 1 the 



THE PUL 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 

, belisks and the temples of ancient Egypt are 

■^tured images <>t' whole dynasties of Pharaohs 

• than Joseph — whose titles are recorded 

^^ ^ ^* *-* ^" "* vhich the granite is charged, and which 

Oitheir long concealed mysteries to the 

prn y n m p n n i ^ ne pl 8 ^ ar * s ' as tne y passed into 

ulKIVi Noi i('r s wllich s ive s race and di g ait y to our 

mknown to Egypt or Assyria; and 

ORATI0. 3e an( l Rome, immortalized by the 

U-ies and museums of the modern 

ANDREW J. GRAHAM an • and in every country, in which 

Reporters and the respect and affection of sur- 

TWELVE IVUMBERS, $1 00 IN ADVAm'™ 1 f atifi f tioQ ** the . historical 

e ot the honored and loved in 
~~ tit and good who have deserved 
The special object in the publication of t' eem , iU \ confidence and private 
form the best thoughts of our most gift" community anl the fond memories 
thus retaining their freshness and p sought, in this way, to piling the sensi- 
the work, and its long continup-ioved and respected objects. What though 
issued as often as Discourses - a features and person, on which while living 
many reported, we hope tc, / thou * tenderness or veneration, have been taken 

Jung ot the loveliness, something ot the majesty 

• t? ir , T i jurtra it, the bust, and the statue. The heart bereft 

originals turn to them, and cold and silent as they are, 

No. 8. — EDWAKD_, t i len au( j animate the cherished recollections of the 

of Daniel "Webster, rumored, and the lost. 

Mr. Everett's great. 11 of the painter and sculptor, which thus comes in aid of 

N . 7. COMINC'T aild imagination, is, in its highest degree, one of the 

Music Course B s lf * s one ot ^' e mos t exquisite accomplishments within 
TT 4p ainment, and in its perfection as seldom witnessed as the per- 
>ii of speech or of music. The plastic hand must be moved 
is on tl e same ethereal instinct as the eloquent lips or the recording 
Dr. Thompson, ? The number of those who, in the language of Michael Angelo, 
No. 5. — The iscern the finished statue in the heart of the shapeless block, 
JESUS AND 1 '^ it start into artistic life — who are endowed with the ex- 
Fork Februarv e ^^ °* m0 ^ un g tae rigid bronze or the lifeless marble into 

„ ' . „ ' nil, majestic, and expressive forms — is not greater than the 

Ber of those who are able, with equal majesty, grace, and ex- 

wm. H. Mn.BUK venesSi t make the spiritual essence — the finest shades of 

No. 3. — The thtand feeling — sensible to the mind, through the eye and the 

ratory, on the Ci the mysterious embodiment of the written and the spoken 

No. 2. The c ' x ' Athens in her palmiest days had but one Pericles, she 

P. Brady, Esq./ but one Phidias. ' 

„ 1 T , „ are these beautiful and noble arts, by which the face and the 

e f the departed are preserved to us — calling into the highest 

CHRISTIAN e as they do all the imitative and idealizing powers of the 

■ r and the sculptor — the least instructive of our teachers. 

Numbers uiu , ''"traits and the statues of the honored dead kindle the geuer- 

>7 VI 



■-' 



DANIEL WEBSTER. J 79 

ous ambition of the youthful aspirant to fame. Themistocles 
could not sleep for the trophies in the Ceramicus; and when the 
living Demosthenes, to whom you, sir [Mr. Felton], have alluded, 
had ceased to speak, the stony lips remained to rehuke and. exhort 
his degenerate countrymen. More than a hundred years have 
elapsed since the great Newton passed away ; hut from age to age 
his statue by Eoubillac, in the ante-chapel of Trinity College, will 
give distinctness to the conceptions formed of him by hundreds and 
thousands of ardent youthful spirits, filled with reverence for that 
transcendent intellect, which, from the phenomena that fall within 
our limited vision, deduced the imperial law by which the Sover- 
eign Mind rules the entire universe. We can never look on the 
person of Washington, but his serene and noble countenance, per- 
petuated by the pencil and the chisel, is familiar to far greater mul- 
titudes than ever stood in his living presence, and will be thus 
familiar to the latest generation. 

What parent, as he conducts his son to Mount Auburn or to Bun- 
ker Hill, will not, as he pauses before their monumental statues, 
seek to heighten his reverence for virtue, for patriotism, for science, 
for learning, for devotion to the puhlic good, as he bids him con- 
template the form of that grave and venerable Winthrop, who left 
his pleasant home in England to come and found a new republic in 
this untrodden wilderness ; of that ardent and intrepid Otis, who 
first struck out the spark of American Independence ; of that noble 
Adams, its most eloquent champion on the floor of Congress ; of 
that martyr Warren, who laid down his life in its defense ; of that 
self-taught Bowditch, who, without a guide, threaded the starry 
mazes of the heavens ; of that Story, honored at home and abroad 
as one of the brightest luminaries of the law, and by a felicity, of 
which I believe there is no other example, admirably portrayed in 
marble by his son ? What citizen of Boston, as he accompanies 
the stranger around our streets, guiding him through our busy 
thoroughfares, to our wharfs crowded with vessels which range 
every sea and gather the produce of every climate — up to the 
dome of this Capitol, which commands as lovely a landscape as can 
delight the eye or gladden the heart, will not, as he calls his atten- 
tion at last to the statues of Franklin and Webster, exclaim — 
"Boston takes pride in her natural position, she rejoices in her 
beautiful environs, she is grateful for her material prosperity ; but 
richer than the merchandise stored in palatial warehouses, greener 
than the slopes of sea-girt islets, lovelier than this encircling pan- 
orama of land and sea, of field and hamlet, of lake and stream, of 
garden and grove, is the memory of her sons, native and adopted ; 
the character, services, and fame of those who have benefited and 
adorned their day and generation. Our children, and the schools 
at which they are trained, our citizens, and the services they have 
rendered; — these are our jewels, — these our abiding treasures." 

Yes, your long rows of quarried granite may crumble to the 



180 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



dust; the cornfields in yonder villages, ripening to the sickle, may, 
like the plains of stricken Lombardy, a few weeks ago, be kneaded 
into bloody clods by the madding wheels of artillery; this popu- 
lous city, like the old cities of Etruria and the Campagna Romana, 
may be* desolated by the pestilence which walketh in darkness, 
may decay with the lapse of time, and the busy mart, which now 
rings with the joyous din of trade, become as lonely and still as 
Carthage or Tyre, as Babylon and Nineveh ; but the names of the 
great and good shall survive the desolation and the ruin ; the mem- 
ory of the wise, the brave, the patriotic, shall never perish. 
Yes, Sparta is a wheat-field ; a Bavarian prince holds court at the 
foot of the Acropolis ; the traveling virtuoso digs for marbles in 
the Roman Forum, and beneath the ruins of the temple of Jupiter 
Capitolinus; but Lycurgus and Leonidas, and Miltiades and De- 
mosthenes, and Cato and Tully "still live;" and he still lives, 
and all the great and good shall live in the heart of ages, while 
marble and bronze shall endure ; and when marble and bronze 
have perished, they shall "still live" in memory, so long as men 
shall reverence Law, and honor Patriotism, and love Liberty ! 

EULOGIES AT THE TIME OF ME. WEBSTER'S DECEASE. 

Seven years, within a few weeks, have passed since he, whose 
statue we inaugurate to-day, was taken from us. The voice of re- 
spectful and affectionate eulogy, which was uttered in this vicinity 
aud city at the time, was promptly echoed throughout the country. 
The tribute paid to his memory, by friends, neighbors, and fellow- 
citizens, was responded to from the remotest corners of the Repub- 
lic, by those who never gazed on his noble countenance, or listened 
to the deep melody of his voice. This city, which in early man- 
hood he chose for his home ; his associates in the honorable 
profession of which he rose to be the acknowledged head ; the law 
school of the neighboring university speaking by the lips of one 
so well able to do justice to his legal pre-eminence ; the college at 
which he was educated, and whose chartered privileges he had suc- 
cessfully maintained before the highest tribunal of the country ; 
with other bodies and other eulogists, at the bar, in the pulpit, 
and on the platform, throughout the Union, in numbers greater, I 
believe, than have ever spoken on any other similar occasion, ex- 
cept that of the death of Washington, joined with the almost 
unanimous press of the country, in one chorus of admiration of 
hi-; talents, recognition of his patriotic services, and respect and 
affection lor his memory. 

Nor have these offerings been made at his tomb alone. Twice 
or thrice since his death, once within a few months — the anniver- 
sary of Ins birthday — has called forth, at the table of patriotic 
festivity, the voice of fervid eulogy and affectionate commemora- 
tion. In this way, and on these occasions, his character has been 
delineated by those best able to do justice to his powers and attain- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. Jgj 

ments, to appreciate his services, to take the measure, if I may so 
say, of his colossal mental stature. Without going beyond this 
immediate neighborhood, and in no degree ungrateful for the liber- 
ality, or insensible to the ability with which he has been eulogized 
in other parts of the country, what need be said, what can be said 
in the hearing of those who have listened to Hillard, to Chief Jus- 
tice Parker, to Cushing, and to our lamented Choate, whose dis- 
course on Mr. Webster at Dartmouth College appears to me as 
magnificent a eulogium as was ever pronounced ? 

What can be said that has not been better said before ; — what 
need be said now that seven added years in the political progress 
of the country, seven years of respectful and affectionate recollec- 
tion on the part of those who now occupy the stage, have con- 
firmed his title to the large place which, while he lived, he filled in 
the public mind ? While he yet bore a part in the councils of the 
Union, he shared the fate which, in all countries, and especially in 
all free countries, awaits commanding talent and eminent position ; — 
which no great man in our history — not Washington himself — has 
ever escaped ; which none can escape, but those who are too feeble 
to provoke opposition, too obscure for jealousy. But now that he 
has rested for years in his honored grave, Avhat generous nature 
is not pleased to strew flowers on the sod ? What honorable op- 
ponent, still faithful to principle, is not willing that all in which 
he differed from him should be referred, without bitterness, to the 
impartial arbitrament of time ; and that all that he respected and 
loved should be cordially remembered ? What public man, especially, 
who, with whatever differences of judgment of men or measures, has 
borne on his own shoulders the heavy burden of responsibility — 
who has felt how hard it is, in the larger complications of affairs, 
at all times to meet the expectations of an intelligent and watchful, 
but impulsive and not always thoroughly instructed public ; how 
difficult sometimes to satisfy his own judgment — is not willing 
that the noble qualities and patriotic services of Webster should 
be honorably recorded in the book of the country's remembrance, 
and his statue set up in the Pantheon of her illustrious sons ? 

POSTHUMOUS HONORS. 

These posthumous honors lovingly paid to departed worth are 
among the compensations which a kind Providence vouchsafes for 
the unavoidable conflicts of judgment and stern collisions of party, 
which make the political career always arduous, even when pur- 
sued with the greatest success, generally precarious, sometimes 
destructive of health and even life. It is impossible under free gov- 
ernments to prevent the existence of party ; not less impossible 
that parties should be conducted with spirit and vigor without 
more or less injustice done and suffered, more or less gross un- 
charitableness and bitter denunciation. Besides, with the utmost 
effort at impartiality, it is not within the competence of our frail 



182 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

capacities to do full justice at the time to a character of varied and 
towering greatness, engaged in an active and responsible political 
career. The truth of his principles, the wisdom of his counsels, the 
value of his services must be seen in their fruits, and the richest 
fruits are not those of the most rapid growth. The wisdom of an- 
tiquity pronounced that no one was to be deemed happy until after 
death ; not merely because he was then first placed beyond the 
vicissitudes of human fortune, but because then only the rival in- 
terests, the discordant judgments, the hostile passions of cotem- 
poraries are, in ordinary cases, no longer concerned to question his 
merits. Horace, with gross adulation, sung to his imperial master, 
Augustus, that he alone of the great of the earth ever received 
while living the full meed of praise. All the other great bene- 
factors of mankind, the inventors of arts, the destroyers of mon- 
sters, the civilizers of states, found by experience that unpopularity 
was appeased by death alone.* 

That solemn event, which terminates the material existence, be- 
comes by the sober revisions of cotemporary judgment, aided by 
offices of respectful and affectionate commemoration, the com- 
mencement of a nobler life on earth. The wakeful eyes are closed, 
the feverish pulse is still, the tired and trembling limbs are relieved 
from their labors, and the aching head is laid to rest on the lap of 
its mother earth, like a play-worn child at the close of a summer's 
day ; but all that we honored and loved in the living man begins to 
live again in a new and higher being of influence and fame. It 
was given but to a limited number to listen to the living voice, and 
they can never listen to it again ; but the wise teachings, the grave 
admonitions, the patriotic exhortations which fell from his tongue 
will be gathered together and garnered up in the memory of mil- 
lions. The cares, the toils, the sorrows ; the conflicts with others, 
the conflicts of the fervent spirit with itself; the sad accidents of 
humanity, the fears of the brave, the follies of the wise, the errors 
of the learned ; all that dashed the cup of enjoyment with bitter 
drops and strewed sorrowful ashes over the beauty of expectation 
and promise ; the treacherous friend, the ungenerous rival, the 
mean and malignant foe ; the uncharitable prejudice which with- 
held the just tribute of praise, the human frailty which wove sharp 
thorns into the wreath of solid merit; — all these in ordinary cases 
are buried in the grave of the illustrious dead ; while their brilliant 
talents, their deeds of benevolence and public spirit, their wise and 
eloquent words, the healing counsels, their generous affections, the 
whole man, in short, whom we revered and loved and would fain 
imitate, especially when his image is impressed upon our recollec- 
tions by the pencil or the chisel, goes forth to the admiration of the 
latest posterity. Extinctus amdbiter idem. 

* Comperit invidiam supremo fine domari . 



DANIEL WEBSTER. Jg3 

THE OBSEQUIES OF ME. CHOATE. 

Our city has lately witnessed a most beautiful instance of this 
re-animating power of death. A few weeks since, we followed 
toward the tomb the lifeless remains of our lamented Ohoate. 
Well may we consecrate a moment even of this hour to him who, 
in that admirable discourse to which I have already alluded, did 
such noble justice to himself and the great subject of his eulogy. 
A short time before the decease of our much honored friend, I had 
seen him shattered by disease, his all-persuasive voice faint and 
languid, his beaming eye quenched ; and as he left us in search of 
health in a foreign clime, a painful image and a sad foreboding too 
soon fulfilled dwelt upon my mind. But on the morning of the 
day when we were to pay the last sad offices to our friend, the 23d 
of July, with a sad, let me not say a repining, thought, that so 
much talent, so much learning, so much eloquence, so much wit, 
so much wisdom, so much force of intellect, so much kindness 
of heart were taken from us, an engraved likeness of him was 
brought to me, in which he seemed to live again. The shadows 
of disease and suffering had passed from the brow, the well-re- 
membered countenance was clothed with its wonted serenity, 
a cheerful smile lighted up the features, genius kindled in the 
eye, persuasion hovered over the lips, and I felt as if I was going, 
not to his funeral, but his triumph. " Weep not for me," it 
seemed to say, "but weep for yourselves." And never while 
he dwelt among us in the feeble tabernacle of the flesh ; never 
while the overtasked spirit seemed to exhaust the delicate 
frame ; never as I had listened to the melody of his living voice, 
did he speak to my imagination and heart with such a touching 
though silent eloquence, as when we followed his hearse along these 
streets, that bright mid-summer's noon, up the via sacra in front 
of this Capitol, slowly moving to the solemn beat of grand dead 
marches, as they swelled from wailing clarion and muffled drum, 
while the minute guns from yonder lawn responded to the passing 
bell from yonder steeple. I then understood the sublime signifi- 
cance of the words, which Cicero puts in the mouth of Cato, that 
the mind, elevated to the foresight of posterity, when departing 
from this life, begins at length to live; yea, the sublimer words of 
a greater than Cicero, " Oh, death ! where is thy sting? oh, grave ! 
where is thy victory?" And then, as we passed the abodes of 
those whom he knew, and honored, and loved, and who had gone 
before ; of Lawrence here on the left ; of Prescott yonder on the 
right ; this home where Hancock lived and Washington was re- 
ceived; this where Lafayette sojourned; this Capitol where his 
own political course began, and on which so many patriotic mem- 
ories are concentrated, I felt, not as if we were conducting another 
frail and weary body to the tomb, but as if we were escorting a noble 
brother to the congenial company of the departed great and good ; 
and I was ready myself to exclaim, " praiclarum diem, cum ad 



184 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

illud divinum animorum concilium ccetumque prqfisciscat', cumque 
ex hac turba et colluvione discedam" 

THE PERIOD IN WHICH ME. WEBSTER LIVED. 

It will not, I think, be expected of me to undertake the super- 
fluous task of narrating in great detail the well-known events of 
Mr. Webster's life, or of attempting an elaborate delineation of that 
character to which such ample justice has already been done by- 
master hands. I deem it sufficient to say in general, that, referred 
to all the standards by which public character can be estimated, 
he exhibited in a rare degree the qualities of a truly great man. 

The period at which Mr. Webster came forward in life, and 
during which he played so distinguished a part, was not one in 
which small men, dependent upon their own exertions, are likely 
to rise to a high place in public estimation. The present genera- 
tion of young men are hardly aware of the vehemence of the storms 
that shook the world at the time when Mr. Webster became old 
enough to form the first childish conceptions of the nature of the 
events in progress at home and abroad. His recollections, he tells 
us in an autobiographical sketch, w T ent back to the year 1790 — a 
year when the political system of continental Europe was about to 
plunge into a state of frightful disintegration, while, under the new 
constitution, the United States were commencing an unexampled 
career of prosperity ; Washington just entering upon the first Pres- 
idency of the new-born Republic ; the reins of the oldest monarchy 
in Europe slipping, besmeared with blood, from the hands of the 
descendant of thirty generations of kings. The fearful struggle 
between France and the allied powers succeeded, which strained 
the resources of the European governments to their utmost tension. 
Armies and navies were arrayed against each other such as the civ- 
ilized world had never seen before, and wars waged beyond all for- 
mer experience. The storm passed over the Continent as a tornado 
passes through a forest, when it comes rolling and roaring from 
the clouds, and prostrates the growth of centuries in its path. 
England, in virtue of her insular position, her naval power, and 
her free institutions, had more than any other foreign country 
weathered the storm ; but Russia saw the arctic sky lighted with 
the flames of her old Muscovite capital ; the shadowy Kaisers of 
the House of Hapsburg were compelled to abdicate the crown of 
the Holy Roman Empire, and accept as a substitute that of Austria ; 
Prussia, staggering from Jena, trembled on the verge of political 
annihilation; the other German states, Italy, Switzerland, Hol- 
land, and the Spanish Peninsula were convulsed ; Egypt overrun ; 
Constantinople and the Ea.st threatened; and in many of these 
states, institutions, laws, ideas, and manners were changed as ef- 
fectually as dynasties. With the downfall of Napoleon a partial 
reconstruction of the old forms took place ; but the political genius 
of the continent of Europe was revolutionized. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. J 85 

On this side of the Atlantic, the United States, though studying 
an impartial neutrality, were drawn at first to some extent into 
the outer circles of the terrific maelstrom ; but soon escaping, they 
started upon a career of national growth and development, of 
which the world has witnessed no other example. Meantime, the 
Spanish and the Portuguese Viceroyalties south of us, from Mexico 
to Cape Horn, asserted their independence, that Castilian empire 
on which the sun never set was dismembered, and the golden chain 
was forever sundered, by which Columbus had linked half his new- 
found world to the throne of Ferdinand and Isabella. 

Such was the crowd and the importance of the events in which, 
from his childhood up, the life of Mr. Webster, and of the genera- 
tion to which he belonged was passed, and I can with all sincerity 
say, that it has never been my fortune, in Europe or America, to 
hold intercourse with any person who seemed to me to penetrate 
further than he had done into the spirit of the age, under its 
successive phases of dissolution, chaos, reconstruction, and prog- 
ress. Born and bred on the verge of the wilderness (his father a 
veteran of those old French and Indian wars, in which, in the 
middle of the 18th century, wild men came out of the woods to 
wage war with the tomahawk and the scalping-knife, against the 
fireside and the cradle), with the slenderest opportunities for early 
education, entering life with scarce the usual facilities for reading 
the riddle of foreign state-craft, remote from the scene of action, 
relying upon sources of information equally open to all the world, 
he seemed to me nevertheless, by the instinct of a great capacity, 
to have comprehended in all its aspects the march of events in 
Europe and this country. He surveyed the agitations of the age 
with calmness, deprecated its excesses, sympathized with its pro- 
gressive tendencies, rejoiced in its triumphs. His first words in 
Congress, when he came unannounced from his native hills in 
1813, proclaimed his mastery of the perplexed web of European 
politics, in which the United States were then but too deeply en- 
tangled ; and from that time till his death I think we all felt — 
those who differed from him as well as those who agreed with 
him — that he was in no degree below the standard of the time ; 
that if Providence had cast his lot in the field where the great des- 
tinies of Europe are decided, this poor New Hampshire youth 
would have carried his head as high among the Metternichs, the 
Nesselrodes, the Hardenbergs, the Talleyrands, the Castlereaghs 
of the day, and surely among their successors, who now occupy 
the stage, as he did among his cotemporaries at home. 

HIS OOTEMPOEAEIES. 

Let me not be thought, however, in this remark, to intimate that 
these cotemporaries at home were second-rate men; far otherwise. 
It has sometimes seemed to me that, owing to the natural reverenco 
in which we hold the leaders of the Revolutionary period— the 



jog DANIEL WEBSTER. 

heroic age of the country — and those of the constitutional age who 
brought°out of chaos this august system of confederate republican- 
ism, we hardly do full justice to the third period in our political 
history, which may be dated from about the time when Mr. Web- 
ster came into political life and continued through the first part of 
his career. The heroes and sages of the revolutionary and consti- 
tutional period were indeed gone, Washington, Franklin, Greene, 
Hamilton, Morris, Jay slept in their honored graves. John 
Adams, Jefferson, Carroll, though surviving, were withdrawn from 
affairs. But Madison, who contributed so much to the formation 
and adoption of the constitution, was at the helm ; Monroe in the 
cabinet ; John Quincy Adams, Gallatin, and Bayard negotiating in 
Europe ; in the Senate were Rufus King, Christopher Gore, Jer- 
emiah Mason, Giles, Otis ; in the House of Representatives, Pinck- 
ney, Clay, Lowndes, Cheves, Calhoun, Gaston,, Forsyth, Randolph, 
Oakley, Pitkin, Grosvenor ; on the bench of the Supreme Court, 
Marshall, Livingston, Story ; at the bar, Dexter, Emmet, Pinkney, 
and Wirt ; with many distinguished men not at that time in the 
general government, of whom it is enough to name Dewitt Clinton 
and Chancellor Kent. It was my privilege to see Mr. Webster, 
associated and mingling with nearly all those eminent men, and 
their successors, not only in later years, but in my own youth, 
and when he first came forward, unknown as yet to the country at 
large, scarcely known to himself, not arrogant, nor yet unconscious 
of his mighty powers, tied to a laborious profession in a narrow range 
of practice, but glowing with a generous ambition, and not afraid 
to grapple with the strongest and boldest in the land. The opinion 
pronounced of him, at the commencement of his career, by Mr. 
Lowndes, that the " South had not in Congress his superior nor 
the North his equal," savors in the form of expression of sectional 
partiality. If it had been said, that neither at the South or the 
North had any public man risen more rapidly to a brilliant reputa- 
tion, no one I think would have denied the justice of the remark. 
He stood from the first the acknowledged equal of the most distin- 
guished of his associates. In later years he acted with the suc- 
cessors of those I have named, with Benton, Burgess, Edward Liv- 
ingston, Hayne, McDuffie, McLean, Sergeant, Clayton, Wilde, 
Storrs, our own Bates, Davis, Gorham, Choate, and others who 
still survive; but it will readily be admitted that he never sunk 
from the position which he assumed at the outset of his career, or 
stood second to any man in any part of the country. 

THE QUESTIONS DISCUSSED IN HIS TIME. 

If we now look for a moment at the public questions with 
which he was called to deal in the course of his career, and with 
which he did deal, in the most masterly manner, as they succes- 
sively came up, we shall find new proofs of his great ability. 
When he first came forward in life, the two great belligerent 



DANIEL WEBSTER. |g7 

powers of Europe, contending with each other for the mastery of 
the world, despising our youthful weakness and impatient of 
our gainful neutrality, in violation now admitted of the Law of 
Nations, emulated each other in the war waged upon our com- 
merce and the insults offered to our flag. To engage in a contest 
with both would have been madness; the choice of the antagonist 
was a question of difficulty, and well calculated to furnish topics 
of reproach and recrimination. Whichever side you adopted, your 
opponent regarded you as being, in a great national struggle, the 
apologist of an unfriendly foreign power. In 1798 the United 
States chose France for their enemy ; in 1812 Great Britain. War 
was declared against the latter country on the 18th of June, 1812; 
the Orders in Council, which were the immediate cause of the 
war, were rescinded five days afterward. Such are the narrow 
chances on which the Fortunes of States depend! 

Great questions of domestic and foreign policy followed the 
close of war. Of the former class were the restoration of a cur- 
rency which should truly represent the values which it nominally 
circulated — a result mainly brought about by a resolution moved 
by Mr. Webster ; the fiscal system of the Union and the best 
mode of connecting the collection, safe-keeping, and disbursement 
of the public funds, with the commercial wants, and especially 
with the exchanges of the country ; the stability of the manufac- 
tures, which had been called into existence during the war; what 
can constitutionally be done, ought anything as a matter of policy 
to be done by Congress to protect them from the competition of 
foreign skill, and the glut of foreign markets ; the internal com- 
munications of the Union, a question of paramount interest before 
the introduction of Eailroads ; can the central power do any- 
thing — what can it do — by roads and canals, to bind the distant 
parts of the continent together; the enlargement of- the judicial 
system of the country to meet the wants of the greatly increased 
number of the States ; the revision of the criminal code of the 
United States, which was almost exclusively his work; the ad- 
ministration of the public lands and the best mode of filling 
with civilized and Christian homes this immense domain, the 
amplest heritage which was ever subjected to the control of a free 
government; connected with the public domain the relations of 
the civilized and dominant race to the aboriginal children of the 
soil ; and lastly the constitutional questions on the nature of the 
government itself, which were raised in that gigantic controversy 
on the interpretation of the fundamental law itself. These were 
some of the most important domestic questions which occupied the 
attention of Congress and the country while Mr. Webster was on 
the stage. 

Of questions connected with Foreign affairs were those growing 
out of the war, which was in progress when he first became a 
member of Congress ; then the various questions of International 



188 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

Law, some of them as novel as they were important, which had 
reference to the entrance or the attempted entrance of so many 
new states into the family of nations ; in Europe — Greece, Bel- 
gium, Hungary ; on this continent, twelve or fourteen new repub- 
lics, great and small, bursting from the ruins of the Spanish 
colonial empire — like a group of asteroids from the wreck of an 
exploded planet; the invitation of. the infant American Kepublics 
to meet them in Congress at Panama ; our commercial relations 
with the British Colonies in the West Indies and on this con- 
tinent; demands of several European states for spoliations on our 
commerce during the wars of the French Bevolution ; our secular 
controversy with England relative to the boundary of the United 
States on the North-Eastern and Pacific frontiers ; our relations 
with Mexico, previous to the war; the immunity of the American 
flag upon the common jurisdiction of the ocean; and more im- 
portant than all other questions, foreign or domestic, in its 
influence upon the general politics of the country, the great 
sectional controversy — not then first commenced, but greatly in- 
creased in warmth and urgency, which connected itself with the 
organization of the newly acquired Mexican territories. 

Such were the chief questions on which it was Mr. Webster's 
duty to form opinions; as an influential member of Congress and a 
political leader to speak and to vote ; as a member of the Execu- 
tive Government to exercise a powerful, over some of them, a de- 
cisive control. Besides these there was another class of questions 
of great public importance, which came up for adjudication in the 
Courts of the United States, which he was called professionally to 
discuss. Many of the questions of each class now referred to di- 
vided and still divide opinion ; excited and still excite the feelings 
of individuals, of parties, of sections of the country. There are 
some of them, which, in the course of a long life, under changing 
circumstances, are likely to be differently viewed at different peri- 
ods by the same individual. I am not here to-day to rake off the 
warm ashes from the embers of controversies which have spent 
their fury and are dying away, or to fan the fires of those which 
still burn. But no one, I think, whether he agreed with Mr. Web- 
ster or differed from him as to any of these questions, will deny 
that he treated them each and all, as they came up in the Senate, 
in the Courts, or in negotiations with Foreign powers, in a broad, 
statesmanlike, and masterly way. There were few who would not 
confess, when they agreed with him, that he had expressed their 
opinions better than they could do it themselves ; few, when they 
differed from him, who would not admit that he had maintained 
his own views manfully, powerfully, and liberally. 

HIS OAEEEE AS A STATESMAN. 

Such was the period in which Mr. Webster lived, such were the 
associates with whom he acted, the questions with which he had 



DANIEL WEBSTER. |g9 

to deal as statesman, jurist, the head of an administration of the 
government, and a public speaker. Let us contemplate him for a 
moment in either capacity. 

Without passing through the preliminary stage of the State Leg- 
islature, and elected to Congress in six years from the time of his 
admission to the Superior Court of New Hampshire, he was, on his 
first entrance into the House of Representatives, placed by Mr. 
Speaker Clay on the Committee of Foreign Affairs, and took rank 
forthwith as one of the leading statesmen of the day. His first 
speech had reference to those famous Berlin and Milan decrees and 
Orders in Council, to which I have already alluded ; and the im- 
pression produced by it was such as to lead the venerable Chief 
Justice Marshall eighteen years afterward, in writing to Mr. Justice 
Story, to say, " At the time when this speech was delivered I did 
not know Mr. Webster, but I was so much struck with it that I 
did not hesitate then to state that he was a very able man, and 
would become one of the very first statesmen in America, perhaps 
the very first." His mind at the very outset of his career had, by 
a kind of instinct, soared from the principles which govern the mu- 
nicipal relations of individuals to those great rules which dictate 
the Law of Nations to Independent States. He tells us, in the frag- 
ment of a diary kept while he was a law student in Mr. Gore's 
office, that he then read Vattel through for the third time. Accord- 
ingly, in after life, there was no subject which he discussed with 
greater pleasure and, I may add, with greater power, than ques- 
tions of the Law of Nations. The Revolution of Greece had from 
its outbreak attracted much of the attention of the civilized world. 
A people, whose ancestors had originally taught letters and arts to 
mankind, struggling to regain a place in the great family of inde- 
pendent states ; the convulsive efforts of a Christian people, the 
foundation of whose churches by the Apostles in person is recorded 
in the New Testament, to shake oft' the yoke of Mohammedan des- 
potism, possessed a strange interest for the friends of Christian Lib- 
erty throughout Europe and America. President Monroe had 
called the attention of Congress to this most interesting struggle in 
December, 1823 ; and Mr. Webster returning to Congress, after a 
retirement of eight years, as the representative of Boston, made the 
Greek Revolution the subject of a motion and a speech. In this 
speech he treated what he called " the great question of the day — 
the question between absolute and regulated governments." He 
engaged in a searching criticism of the doctrines of the " Holy Alli- 
ance," and maintained the duty of the United States, as a great free 
power, to protest against them. That speech remains, in my judg- 
ment, to this day the ablest and most effective remonstrance against 
the principles of the allied military powers of continental Europe. 
Mr. Jeremiah Mason pronounced it " the best sample of parliament- 
ary eloquence and statesmanlike reasoning which our country had 
seen." His indignant protest against the spirit of absolutism, and 



190 DANIET, WEBSTER. 

his words of sympathy with an infant People struggling for inde- 
pendence, were borne on the wings of the wind throughout Chris- 
tendom. They were read in every language, at every court, in 
every cabinet, in every reading-room, on every market-place, by 
the Republicans of Mexico and Spanish South America, by the Re- 
formers of Italy, the Patriots of Poland ; on the Tagus, on the Dan- 
ube, as well as at the head of the little armies of revolutionary 
Greece. " The practical impression which it made on the American 
mind was seen in the liberality with which cargoes of food and 
clothing, a year or two afterward, were dispatched to the relief of 
the Greeks. No legislative or executive measure was adopted at 
that time in consequence of Mr. Webster's motion and speech; 
probably none was anticipated by him ; but no one who considers 
how much the march of events in such cases is influenced by the 
moral sentiments, will doubt that a great word like this, spoken in 
the American Congress, must have had no slight effect in cheering 
the heart of Greece to persevere in their unequal but finally suc- 
cessful struggle. 

It was by these masterly parliamentary efforts that Mr. Webster 
left his mark on the age in which he lived. His fidelity to his con- 
victions kept him for the greater part of his life in a minority ; a 
position which he regarded, not as a proscription, but as a post of 
honor and duty. He felt that in free governments and in a normal 
state of parties, an opposition is a political necessity, and that it has 
its duties not less responsible than those which attach to office. 
Before the importance of Mr. Webster's political services is dispar- 
aged for want of positive results, which can only be brought about 
by those who are clothed with power, it must be shown that to 
raise a persuasive and convincing voice in the vindication of truth 
and right, to uphold and assert the true principles of the govern- 
ment under which we live, and bring them home to the hearts of 
the people — to do this from a sense of patriotic duty, and without 
hope of the honors and emoluments of office, to do it so as to in- 
struct the public conscience and warm the public heart, is a less 
meritorious service to society than to touch with skillful hand the 
springs of party politics, and to hold together the often discordant 
elements of ill-compacted majorities. 

The greatest parliamentary effort made by Mr. Webster was his 
second speech on Foot's resolution ; the question at issue being 
nothing less than this : Is the Constitution of the United States a 
compact without a common umpire between confederated sov- 
ereignties, or is it a government of the People of the United States, 
sovereign within the sphere of its delegated powers, but reserving 
a great mass of undelegated rights to the separate State govern- 
ments and the People. With those who embrace the opinions 
which Mr. Webster combated in this speech, this is not the time 
nor the place to engage in an argument ; but those who believe 
that he maintained the true principles of the Constitution will 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 191 

probably agree that since that Instrument was communicated to 
the Continental Congress, seventy-two years ago this day, by 
George Washington, as President of the Federal Convention, no 
greater service has been rendered to them than in the delivery of 
this speech. Well do I recollect the occasion and the scene. It 
was truly what Wellington called the battle of Waterloo, a conflict 
of Giants. I passed an hour and a half with Mr. Webster, at his 
request, the evening before this great effort ; and he went over to 
me, from a very concise brief, the main topics of the speech, which 
he had prepared for the following day. So calm and unimpas- 
sioned was the memorandum, so entirely was he at ease himself, 
that I was tempted to think, absurdly enough, that he was not 
sufficiently aware of the magnitude of the occasion. But I soon 
perceived that his calmness was the repose of conscious power. 
He was not only at ease, but sportive and full of anecdote ; and as 
he told the Senate playfully the next day, he slept soundly that 
night on the formidable assault of his gallant and accomplished 
adversary. So the great Conde slept on the eve of the battle of 
Rocroi ; so Alexander slept on the eve of the battle of Arbela ; 
and so they awoke to deeds of immortal fame. As I saw him in 
the evening (if I may borrow an illustration from his favorite 
amusement) he was as unconcerned and as free of spirit as some 
here have often seen him, while floating in his fishing-boat along 
a hazy shore, gently rocking on the tranquil tide, dropping his line 
here and there, with the varying fortune of the sport. The next 
morning he was like some mighty Admiral, dark and terrible, 
casting the long shadow of his frowning tiers far over the sea, that 
seemed to sink beneath him ; his broad pennant streaming at the 
main, the stars and stripes at the fore, the mizzen, and the peak, 
and bearing down like a tempest upon his antagonist, with all his 
canvas strained to the wind, and all his thunders roaring from 
his broadsides. 

AS A JURIST. 

Mr. Webster's career was not less brilliant as a jurist than as a 
statesman. In fact, he possessed in an eminent degree a judicial 
mind. While performing an amount of congressional and official 
labor sufficient to fill the busiest day and to task the strongest 
powers, he yet sustained with a giant's strength the Herculean 
toils of his profession. At the very commencement of his legal 
studies, resisting the fascination of a more liberal course of read- 
ing, he laid his foundations deep in the common law ; grappled as 
well as he might with the weary subtilties and obsolete technical- 
ities of Coke Littleton, and abstracted and translated volumes of 
reports from the Norman-French and Latin. A few years of prac- 
tice follow in the Courts of New Hampshire, interrupted by his 
service in Congress for two political terms, and we find him at the 
bar of the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington, in- 



192 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



augurating in the Dartmouth College case what may he called a 
new school of constitutional jurisprudence. 

It would be a waste of time to speak of that great case, or of Mr. 
Webster's connection with it. It is too freshly remembered in oar 
tribunals. So novel at that time were the principles involved in 
it, that a member of the Court, after a cursory inspection of the 
record of the case, expressed the opinion that little of importance 
could be urged in behalf of the plaintiff in error; but so firm bs 
tbe basis on which in that and subsequent cases of a similar char- 
acter those principles were established, that they form one of the 
best settled, as they are one of the most important, portions of the 
constitutional law of the Union. 

Not less important, and, at the time, not less novel, were the 
principles involved in the celebrated case of Gibbons and Ogden. 
This case grew out of a grant by the State of New York to the as- 
signees of Fulton of the exclusive right to navigate by steam the 
rivers, harbors, and bays of the Empire State. Twenty-five years 
afterward, Mr. Justice Wayne gave to Mr. Webster the credit of 
having laid down the broad constitutional ground on which the 
navigable waters of the United States, " every creek and river and 
lake and bay and harbor in the country," was forever rescued from 
the grasp of State monopoly. So failed the intention of the Legis- 
lature of New York to secure a rich pecuniary reward to the great 
perfecter of steam navigation ; so must have failed any attempt to 
compensate by money the inestimable achievement. Monopolies 
could not reward it; silver and gold could not weigh down its 
value. Small services are paid with money ; large ones with fame. 
Fulton had his reward when, after twenty years of unsuccessful 
experiment and hope deferred, he made the passage to Albany by 
steam ; as Franklin had his reward when he saw the fibers of the 
cord which held his kite stiffening with the electricity they had 
drawn from the thunder-cloud; as Galileo had his when he point- 
ed his little tube to the heavens and discovered the Medicean stars ; 
as Columbus had his when he beheld from the deck of his vessel a 
moving light on the shores of his new-found world. That one 
glowing, unutterable thrill of conscious success is too exquisite to 
be alloyed with baser metal. The midnight vigils, the aching 
eyes, the fainting hopes turned at last into one bewildering ecstasy 
of triumph, can not be repaid with gold. The great discoveries, 
improvements, and inventions which benefit mankind can only be 
rewarded by opposition, obloquy, poverty, and an undying name! 

Time would fail me, were I otherwise equal to the task, to dwell 
on the other great constitutional cases argued by Mr. Webster ; 
those on State insolvent laws, the Bank of the United States, the 
Sailor's Snug Harbor, the Charlestown Bridge Franchise, or those 
other great cases on the validity of Mr. Girard's will, in which Mr. 
Webster's argument drew forth an emphatic acknowledgment 
from the citizens of Washington, of all denominations, for its great 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



193 



value "in demonstrating the vital importance of Christianity to 
the success of our free institutions, and that the general diffusion 
of that argument among the People of the United States is a mat- 
ter of deep public interest ;" or the argument in the Ehode Island 
charter case in 1848, which attracted no little public notice in Eu- 
rope at that anxious period, as a masterly discussion of the true 
principles of constitutional obligation. 

It would be superfluous, I might almost say impertinent, to re- 
mark, that if Mr. Webster stood at the head of the constitutional 
lawyers of the country, he was not less distinguished in early and 
middle life in the ordinary walks of the profession. From a very 
early period he shared the best practice with the most eminent of 
his profession. The trial of Goodridge in 1817, and of Knapp in 
1829, are still recollected as specimens of the highest professional 
skill, the latter, in fact, as a case of historical importance in the crim- 
inal jurisprudence of the country. 

But, however distinguished his reputation in the other depart- 
ments of his profession, his fame as a jurist is mainly associated 
with the tribunals of the United States. The relation of the Fed- 
eral Government to that of the States is peculiar to this country, 
and gives rise to a class of cases in the Supreme Court of the 
United States to which there is nothing analagous in the jurispru- 
dence of England. In that country, nothing, not even the express 
words of a treaty, can be pleaded against an act of Parliament. 
The Supreme Court of the United States entertains questions 
which involve the constitutionality of the laws of State Legislatures, 
the validity of the decrees of State Courts — nay, of the constitu- 
tionality of the acts of Congress itself. Every one feels that this 
range and elevation of jurisdiction must tend greatly to the respecta- 
bility of practice at that forum, and give a breadth and liberality to 
the tone with which questions are there discussed, not so much to be 
there looked for in the ordinary litigation of the common law. No 
one needs to be reminded how fully Mr. Webster felt, and, in his 
own relations to it, sustained the dignity of this tribunal. He re- 
garded it as the great mediating power of the Constitution. He 
believed that, while it commanded the confidence of the country, 
no serious derangement of any of the other great functions of the 
government was to be apprehended. If it should ever fail to do so, 
he feared the worst. For the memory of Marshall, the great and 
honored magistrate, who presided in this court for the third part 
of a century, and did so much to raise its reputation and establish 
its influence, he cherished feelings of veneration second only to 
those which he bore to the memory of Washington. , 

AS A DIPLOMATIST. 

In his political career Mr. Webster owed almost everything to 
popular choice, or the favor of the Legislature of Massachusetts. 
He was, however, twice clothed with executive power, as the head 



194 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

of an Administration, and in that capacity achieved a diplomatic 
success of the highest order. Among the victories of peace not 
less renowned than those of war which Milton celebrates, the first 
place is surely due to those friendly arrangements between great 
powers, by which war is averted. Such an arrangement was eifect- 
ed by Mr. Webster in 1842, in reference to more than one highly ir- 
ritating question between this country and Great Britain, and es- 
pecially the North-Eastern Boundary of the United States. I 
allude to the subject, not for the sake of reopening obselete contro- 
versies, but for the purpose of vindicating his memory from the 
charges of disingenuousness, and even fraud, which were brought 
against him at the time in England, and which have very lately 
been revived in that country. I do it the rather, as the facts of 
the case have never been fully stated. 

The North-Eastern Boundary of the United States, which was 
described by the treaty of 1783, had never been surveyed and run. 
It was still unsettled in 1842, and had become the subject of a con- 
troversy, which had resisted the ability of several successive 
administrations, on both sides of the water, and had nearly ex- 
hausted the resources of arbitration and diplomacy. Border col- 
lisions, though happily no bloodshed, had taken place ; seventeen 
regiments had been thrown into the British provinces ; General 
Scott had been dispatched to the frontier of Maine ; and our 
Minister in London (Mr. Stevenson) had written to the commander 
of the American squadron in the Mediterranean, that a collision, 
in his opinion, was inevitable. 

Such was the state of things when Mr. Webster came into the 
Department of State in the spring of 1841. He immediately gave 
an intimation to the British Government that he was desirous of 
renewing the interrupted negotiation. A change of ministry took 
place in England in the course of a few months, and a resolution 
was soon taken by Sir Robert Peel and Lord Aberdeen to send a 
special Envoy to the United States, to make a last attempt to settle 
this dangerous dispute by negotiation. Lord Ashburton was selected 
for this honorable errand, and his known friendly relations with 
Mr. Webster were among the motives that prompted his appoint- 
ment. It may be observed, that the intrinsic difficulties of the ne- 
gotiation were increased by the circumstance, that, as the disputed 
territory lay in the State of Maine, and the property of the soil 
was in Maine and Massachusetts, it was deemed necessary to obtain 
the consent of those States to any arrangement that might be en- 
tered into by the General Government. 

The length of time for which the question had been controverted 
had. as usually happens in such cases, the effect of fixing both 
parties more firmly in their opposite views of the subject. It was 
a pledge, at least, of the good faith with which the United States 
had conducted the discussion, that everything in our archives bear- 
ing on the subject had been voluntarily spread before the world. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. \ 95 

On the other side, no part of the correspondence of the ministers 
who negotiated the treaty had ever been published, and whenever 
Americans were permitted, for literary purposes, to institute his- 
torical inquiries in the public offices in London, precautions were 
taken to prevent anything from being brought to light which might 
bear unfavorably on the British interpretation of the treaty. 

The American interpretation of the treaty had been maintained 
in its fullest extent, as far as I am aware, by every statesman in 
the country, of whatever party, to whom the question had ever 
been submitted. It had been thus maintained in good faith by an 
entire generation of public men of the highest intelligence and most 
unquestioned probity. The British government had, with equal 
confidence, maintained their interpretation. The attempt to settle 
the controversy by a reference to the King of the Netherlands had 
failed. In this state of things, as the boundary had remained un- 
settled for fifty-nine years, and had been controverted for more 
than twenty ; as negotiation and arbitration had shown that neither 
party was likely to convince the other ; and as, in cases of this 
kind, it is more important that a public controversy should be settled 
than how it should be settled (of course within reasonable limits), 
Mr. Webster had from the first contemplated a conventional line. 
Such a line, and for the same reasons, was anticipated in Lord Ash- 
burton's instructions, and was accordingly agreed upon by the two 
negotiators — a line convenient and advantageous to both parties. 

Such an adjustment, however, like that which had been proposed 
by the King of the Netherlands, was extremely distasteful to the 
people of Maine, who, standing on their rights, adhered with the 
greatest tenacity to the boundary described by the treaty of 1783, 
as the United States had always claimed it. As the opposition of 
Maine had prevented that arrangement from taking effect, there is 
great reason to suppose that it would have prevented the adoption 
of the conventional line agreed to by Mr. Webster and Lord Ash- 
burton, but for the following circumstance. 

This was the discovery, the year before, by President Sparks, in 
the archives of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs, at Paris, of a copy 
of a small map of North America, by D'Anville, published in 1746, 
on which a red line was drawn, indicating a boundary between the 
United States and Great Britain more favorable to the latter than 
she had herself claimed it. By whom it was marked, or for what 
purpose, did not appear, from any indication on the map itself. 
There was also found, in the Bureau of Foreign Affairs, in a bound 
volume of official correspondence, a letter from Dr. Franklin to the 
Count de Vergennes, dated on the 6th of December (six days after 
the signature of the provisional articles), stating that, in compliance 
with the Count's request, and on a, map sent him for the purpose, 
he had marked, "with a strong red line, the limits of the United 
States, as settled in the preliminaries." 

The French archives had been searched by Mr. Canning's agents 



196 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



as long ago as 1827, but this map either escaped their notice, or 
had not been deemed by them of importance. The English and 
French maps of this region differ from each other, and it is known 
that the map used by the negotiators of the treaty of 1783 was 
Mitchell's large map of America, published under the official sanc- 
tion of the Board of Trade iu 1754. D'Anville's map was but 
eighteen inches square, and on so small a scale the difference of the 
two boundaries would be but slight, and consequently open to mis- 
take. The letter of the Count de Vergennes, transmitting a map 
to be marked, is not preserved, nor is there any indorsement on 
the red-line map to show that it is the map sent by the Count and 
marked by Franklin. D'Anville's map was published in 1746, and 
it would surely be unwarrantable to take for granted, in a case of 
such importance, that, in the course of thirty years, it could not 
have been marked with a red line for some other purpose, and by 
some other person. It would be equally rash to assume as certain 
either that the map marked by Franklin for the Count de Vergen- 
nes w T as deposited by him iu the public archives ; or, if so depos- 
ited, may not still be hid away among the sixty thousand maps 
contained in that depository. The official correspondence of Mr. 
Oswald, the British negotiator, was retained by the British minister 
in his own possession, and does not appear to have gone into the 
public archives. 

In the absence of all evidence to connect Dr. Franklin's letter 
with the map, it could not, in a court of justice, have been received 
for a moment as a map marked by him ; and any presumption that 
it was so marked, was resisted by the language of the treaty. 
This point was urged in debate, with great force, by Lord Brougham, 
■who, as well as Sir Robert Peel, liberally defended Mr. Webster 
from the charges which the opposition journals in London had 
brought against him. 

Information of this map was, in the progress of the negotiation, 
very properly communicated to Mr. Webster by Mr. Sparks. For 
the reasons stated, it could not be admitted as proving anything. 
It was another piece of evidence of uncertain character, and Mr. 
Webster could have no assurance that the next day might not pro- 
duce some other map equally strong or stronger on the American 
side ; which, as I shall presently state, was soon done in London. 

In this state of things, he made the only use of it which could 
be legitimately made, in communicating it to the commissioners of 
the State of Maine and Massachusetts and to the Senate, as a piece 
of conflicting evidence, entitled to consideration, likely to be urged 
as of great importance by the opposite party, if the discussion 
should be renewed, increasing the difficulties which already sur- 
rounded the question, and thus furnishing new grounds for agree- 
ing to the proposed conventional line. No one, I think, acquainted 
with the history of the controversy, and the state of public opinion 
and feeling, can doubt that, but for this communication, it would 



DANIEL WEBSTER. J 97 

have been difficult, if not impossible, to procure the assent either 
of Maine or of the Senate to the treaty. 

This would seem to be going as far as reason or honor required, 
in reference to an unauthenticated document, having none of the 
properties of legal evidence, not exhibited by the opposite party, 
and of a nature to be outweighed by contradictory evidence of the 
same kind, which was very soon done. But Mr. "Webster was, at 
the time, severely censured by the opposition press in England, 
and was accused of "perfidy and want of good faith" (and this 
charge has lately been revived in an elaborate and circumstantial 
manner), for not going with this map to Lord Ashburton ; entirely 
abandoning the American claim, and ceding the whole of the dis- 
puted territory, more even than she asked, to Great Britain, on the 
strength of this single piece of doubtful evidence. 

Such a charge scarcely deserves an answer ; but two things will 
occur to all impartial persons : one, that the red-line map, even had 
it been proved to have been marked by Franklin (which it is not), 
would be but one piece of evidence to be weighed with the words 
of the treaty, with all the other evidence in the case, and especially 
with the other maps ; and, secondly, that such a course as it is pre- 
tended that Mr. Webster ought to have pursued, could only be 
reasonably required of him, on condition that the British govern- 
ment had also produced, or would undertake to produce, all the 
evidence, and especially all the maps in its possession, favorable to 
the American claim. 

Now, not to urge against the red-line map, that, as was vigor- 
ously argued by Lord Brougham, it was at variance with the ex- 
press words of the treaty, there were, according to Mr. Gallatin, 
the commissioner for preparing the claim of the United States, to 
be submitted to the arbiter in 1827, at least twelve maps published 
in London in the course of two years after the signature of the pro- 
visional articles in 1782, all of which give the boundary line pre- 
cisely as claimed by the United States ; and no map was published 
in London, favoring the British claim, till the third year. The 
earliest of these maps were prepared to illustrate the debates in 
Parliament on the treaty, or to illustrate the treaty in anticipation 
of the debate. None of the speakers on either side intimated that 
these maps are inaccurate, though some of the opposition speakers 
attacked the treaty as giving a disadvantageous boundary. One 
of these maps, that of Faden, the royal geographer, was stated on 
the face of it to be " drawn according to the treaty." Mr. Sparks 
is of opinion that Mr. Oswald, the British envoy by whom the 
treaty was negotiated, and who was in London when the earliest 
of the maps were engraved, was consulted by the map-makers on 
the subject of the boundary. At any rate, had they been inaccu- 
rate in this respect, either Mr. Oswald or the minister, " who was 
vehemently assailed on account of the large concession of the 
boundaries," would have exposed the error. But neither by Mr. 



198 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

Oswald nor by any of the ministers was any complaint made of the 
inaccuracy of the maps. 

One of these maps was that contained in "Bew's Political Mag- 
azine," a respectable journal, for which it was prepared, to illus- 
trate the debate on the provisional articles of 1782. It happened 
that Lord Ashburton was calling upon me, about the time of the 
debate in the House of Commons on the merits of the Treaty, on 
the 21st March, 1843. On my expressing to him the opinion, with 
the freedom warranted by our intimate friendly relations, that his 
government ought to be much obliged to him for obtaining so much 
of a territory, of which I conscientiously believed the whole be- 
longed to us, " What," asked he, " have you to oppose to the red- 
line map?" I replied that, in addition to the other objections 
already mentioned, I considered it to be outweighed by the numer- 
ous other maps which were published at London at the time, some 
of them to illustrate the treaty ; and, among them, I added, " the 
map in the volume which happens to lie on my table at this mo- 
ment," which was the volume of "Bew's Political Magazine," 
to which I called his attention. He told me that he was unac- 
quainted with that map, and desired that I would lend him the vol- 
ume to show to Sir Eobert Peel. This I did, and in his reply to 
Lord Palmerston, in the House of Commons, Sir Robert Peel, hold- 
ing this volume of mine in his hand, referred to the map contain- 
ed in it, and "which follows," said he, "exactly the American 
line," as an off-set to the red-line map, of which great use had been 
made by the opposition in England, for the purpose of showing 
that Lord Ashburton had been overreached by Mr. Webster. In 
the course of his speech he defended Mr. Webster in the handsom- 
est manner from the charges brought against him in reference to 
this map by the opposition press, and said that in his judgment 
" the reflections cast upon that most worthy and honorable man are 
unjust." 

Nor was this all. The more effectually to remove the impression 
attempted to be raised, in consequence of the red-line map, that 
Lord Ashburton had been overreached, Sir Robert Peel stated — 
and the disclosure teas now for the first time made — that there was 
in the library of King George the Third (which had been given to the 
British Museum by George the Fourth) a copy of Mitchell's map, in 
which the boundary as delineated "follows exactly the line claimed 
by the United States." On four places upon this line are written 
the words, in a strong, bold hand, " The boundary as described by 
Mr. Oswald." There is documentary proof that Mr. Oswald sent 
the map used by him, in negotiating the treaty, to King George 
the Third, for his information; and Lord Brougham stated in his 
place, in the House of Peers, that the words, four times repeated, 
in different parts of the line, were, in his opinion, written by the 
King himself! Having listened, and of course with the deepest in- 
terest to the debate in the House of Commons, I sought the earli- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. J 99 

est opportunity of inspecting the map, which was readily granted 
to me by Lord Aberdeen. The boundary is marked, in the most 
distinct and skillful manner, from the St. Croix all round to the St. 
Mary's, and is precisely that which has been always claimed by us. 
There is every reason to believe that this is the identical copy of 
Mitchell's map officially used by the negotiators and sent by Mr. 
Oswald, as we learn from Dr. Franklin, to England. Sir Robert 
Peel informed me that it was unknown to him till after the treaty, 
and Lord Aberdeen and Lord Ashburton gave me the same assur- 
ance. It was well known, however, to the agent employed under 
Lord Melbourne's administration in maintaining the British claim, 
and who was foremost in vilifying Mr. Webster for concealing the 
red-line map t* 

A3 A PUBLIC SPEAKER. 

I had intended to say a few words on Mr. "Webster's transcend- 
ent ability as a public speaker on the great national anniversaries, 
and the patriotic celebrations of the country. But it would be 
impossible, within the limits of a few paragraphs, to do any kind 
of justice to such efforts as the discourse on the twenty-second 
December, at Plymouth ; the speeches on laying the corner-stone 
and the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument; the eulogy 
on Adams and Jefferson ; the character of Washington ; the dis- 
course on laying the foundation of the extension of the Capitol. 
What gravity and significance in the topics, what richness of illus- 
tration, what soundness of principle, what elevation of sentiment, 
what fervor in the patriotic appeals, what purity, vigor, and clear- 
ness in the style ! 

With reference to the first-named of these admirable discourses, 
the elder President Adams declared that " Burke is no longer enti- 
tled to the praise — the most consummate orator of modern times;" 
and it will, I think, be admitted by any one who shall attentively 
study them, that if Mr. Webster, with all his powers and all his at- 
tainments, had done nothing else but enrich the literature of the 
country with these performances, he would be allowed to have 
lived not unworthily, nor in vain. When we consider that they 
were produced under the severe pressure of professional and offi- 
cial engagements, numerous and arduous enough to task even his 
intellect, we are lost in admiration of the affluence of his mental 
resources. 



* Sir Robert Peel, with reference to the line on Oswald's map, observes, " I do 
not say that that was the boundary, ultimately settled by the negotiators." Such, 
however, is certainly the case. Mr. Jay's copy of Mitchell's map (which was also 
discovered after the negotiation of the treaty) exhibits a line running down the St. 
John's to its month, and called Mr. Oswald's line." This is the line which Mr. Os- 
wald offered to the American negotiators on the sth of October. It was, however, 
not approved by the British government, and the line indicated in the map of King 
George the Third, as the "Boundary as described by Mr. Oswald," was Anally 
agreed to. 



200 DANIEL WEBSTER. 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF STYLE AND MANNER. 

la all the speeches, arguments, discourses, and compositions of 
every kind proceeding from Mr. Webster's lips or pen, there were 
certain general characteristics which I am unwilling to dismiss 
without a passing allusion. Each, of course, had its peculiar 
merits, according to the nature and importance of the subject, 
and the degree of pains bestowed by Mr. Webster on the dis- 
cussion ; but I find some general qualities pervading them all. 
One of them is the extreme sobriety of the tone, the pervading 
common sense, the entire absence of that extravagance and over- 
statement which are so apt to creep into political harangues and 
the discourses on patriotic anniversaries. His positions were taken 
strongly, clearly, and boldly, but without wordy amplification or one- 
sided vehemence. You feel that your understanding is addressed, 
on behalf of a reasonable proposition, which rests neither on senti- 
mental refinement or rhetorical exaggeration. This is the case 
even in speeches like that on the Greek Revolution, where, in en- 
listing the aid. of classical memories and Christian sympathies, it 
was so difficult to rest within the bounds of moderation. 

This moderation not only characterizes Mr. Webster's parlia- 
mentary efforts, but is equally conspicuous in his discourses on 
popular and patriotic occasions, which, amid all the inducements 
to barren declamation, are equally and always marked by the treat- 
ment of really important topics in a manly and instructive strain 
of argument and reflection. 

Let it not be thought, however, that I would represent Mr. 
Webster's speeches in Congress or elsewhere as destitute on proper 
occasions of the most glowing appeals to the moral sentiments, or 
wanting, when the topic invites it, in any of the adornments of a 
magnificent rhetoric. Who that beard it, or has read it, will ever 
forget the desolating energy of his denunciation of the African 
Slave Trade, in the discourse at Plymouth ; or the splendor of the 
apostrophe to Warren, in the first discourse on Bunker Hill ; or 
that to the monumental shaft and the survivors of the Revolution 
in the second ; or the trumpet-tones of the speech placed in the 
lips of John Adams, in the eulogy on Adams and Jefferson ; or the 
sublime peroration of the speech on Foot's resolution ; or the lyric 
fire of the imagery by which he illustrates the extent of the Brit- 
ish empire ; or the almost supernatural terror of his description 
of the force of conscience in the argument in Knapp's trial. Then, 
how bright and fresh the description of Niagara ! how beautiful 
the picture of the Morning in his private correspondence, which, 
as well as his familiar conversation, was enlivened by the per- 
petual play of a joyous and fertile imagination! In a word, what 
tone in all the grand and melting music of our language is there 
which is not heard in some portion of his speeches or writings; 
while reason, sense, and truth compose the basis of the strain? 



DANIEL "WEBSTER. 201 

Like the sky above ns, it is sometimes serene and cloudless, and 
peace and love shine out from its starry depths. At other times 
the gallant streamers, in wild, fantastic play — emerald, and rose, 
and orange, and fleecy white — shoot upward from the horizon, 
mingle in a fiery canopy at the zenith, and throw out their flick- 
ering curtains over the heavens and the earth ; while at other 
times the mustering tempest piles his lowering battlements on the 
sides of the north; a furious storm- wind rushes forth from their 
blazing loop-holes, and volleyed thunders give the signal of the ele- 
mental war ! 

Another quality, which appears to me to be very conspicuous in all 
Mr. Webster's speeches, is the fairness and candor with which he 
treats the argument of his opponent, and the total absence of 
offensive personality. He was accustomed, in preparing to argue 
a question at the bar, or to debate it hi the Senate, first to state 
his opponent's case, or argument, in his own mind, with as much 
force and skill as if it were his own view of the subject, not deeming 
it worthy of a statesman discussing the great issues of the public 
weal, to assail and prostrate a man of straw, and call it a victory 
over his antagonist. True to his party associations, there was the 
least possible mingling of the partizan in his parliamentary efforts. 
No one, I think, ever truly said of him that he had either misrep- 
resented or failed to grapple fairly with the argument which he un- 
dertook to confute. That he possessed the power of invective in 
the highest degree is well known, from the display of it on a few 
occasions, when great provocation justified and required it ; buthe 
habitually abstained from offensive personality, regarding it as an 
indication always of a bad temper, and generally of a weak 
cause. 

I notice, lastly, a sort of judicial dignity in Mr. Webster's mode 
of treating public questions, which may be ascribed to the high de- 
gree in which he united, in the range of his studies and the habits 
of his life, the jurist with the statesman. There were occasions, 
and these not a few, when but for the locality from which he 
spoke, you might have been at a loss whether you were listening 
to the accomplished senator unfolding the principles of the Con- 
stitution as a system of Government, or the consummate jurist ap- 
plying its legislative provisions to the practical interests of life. In 
the Dartmouth College case, and that of Gibbons and Ogden, the 
dryness of a professional argument is forgotten in the breadth and 
elevation of the constitutional principles shown to be involved in 
the issue ; while in the great speeches on the interpretation of the 
Constitution, a severe judicial logic darts its sunbeams into the 
deepest recesses of a written compact of Government, intended 
to work out a harmonious adjustment of the antagonistic principles 
of Federal and State sovereignty. None, I think, but a great 
statesman could have performed Mr. Webster's part before the 
highest tribunals of the land ; none but a great lawyer could have 



202 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

sustained himself as he did on the floor of the Senate. In fact, he 
rose to that elevation at which the law, in its highest conception, 
and in its versatile functions and agencies, as the great mediator be- 
tween the State and the individual ; the shield by which the weakness 
of the single man is protected from the violence and craft of his fel- 
lows, and clothed for the defense of his rights with the mighty power 
of the mass ; which watches — faithful guardian — over the life and 
property of the orphan in the cradle; spreads the regis of the pub- 
lic peace alike over the crowded streets of great cities and the sol- 
itary pathways of the wilderness ; which convoys the merchant 
and his cargo in safety to and from the ends of the earth ; pre- 
scribes the gentle humanities of civilization to contending armies; 
sits serene umpire of the clashing interests of confederated States, 
and molds them all into one grand union ;— I say, Mr. Webster 
rose to an elevation at which all these attributes and functions of 
universal law — in action alternately executive, legislative, and ju- 
dicial ; in form, successively constitution, statute, and decree — are 
mingled into one harmonious, protecting, strengthening, vitalizing, 
sublime system ; brightest image on earth of that ineffable sove- 
reign energy, which, with mingled power, wisdom, and love, up- 
holds and governs the universe. 

THE CENTRAL IDEA OF HIS POLITICAL SYSTEM. 

_ Led equally by his professional occupations and his political du- 
ties to make the Constitution the object of his profoundest study 
and meditation, he regarded it with peculiar reverence, as a Cove- 
nant of Union between the members of this great and increasing 
family of States ; and in that respect he considered it as the most im- 
portant document ever penned by the hand of uninspired man. I 
need not tell you that this reverence for the Constitution as the 
covenant of union between the States was the central idea of his 
political system, which, however, in this, as in all other respects, 
aimed at a wise and safe balance of extreme opinions. He valued, 
as much as any man can possibly value it, the principle of State 
sovereignty. He looked upon the organization of these separate 
independent republics — of different sizes, different ages and histo- 
ries, different geographical positions and local interests — as furnish- 
ing a security of inappreciable value for a wise and beneficent 
administration of local affairs, and the protection of individual and 
local rights. But he regarded as an approach to the perfection of 
political wisdom, the molding of these separate and independent 
sovereignties, with all their pride of individual right, and all their 
jealousy of individual consequence, into a harmonious whole. He 
never weighed the two principles against each other; he held 
them complements! to each other, equally and supremely vital and 
essential. 

I happened, one bright starry night, to be walking home with 
him, at a late hour, from the Capitol at Washington, after a skir- 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 203 

mishing debate, in which he had been speaking, at no great length, 
but with much earnestness and warmth, on the subject of the Con- 
stitution as forming a united government. The planet Jupiter, 
shining with unusual brilliancy, was in full view. He paused as we 
descended Capitol Hill, and unconsciously pursuing the train of 
thought which he had been enforcing in the Senate, pointed to the 
planet and said — "'Night unto night showeth knowledge;' take 
away the independent force, emanating from the hand of the Su- 
preme, which impels that planet onward, and it would plunge in 
hideous ruin from those beautiful skies unto the sun ; take away 
the central attraction of the sun, and the attendant planet would 
shoot madly from its sphere ; urged and restrained by the balanced 
forces, it wheels its eternal circles through the heavens." 

HE CONTEMPLATES A WORK ON THE CONSTITUTION. 

His reverence for the Constitution led him to meditate a work 
in which the history of its formation and adoption should be traced, 
its principles unfolded and explained, its analogies with other govern- 
ments investigated, its expansive fitness to promote the prosperity 
of the country for ages yet to come, developed and maintained. 
His thoughts had long flowed in this channel. The subject was 
not only the one on which he had bestowed his most earnest par- 
liamentary efforts, but it formed the point of reference of much 
of his historical and miscellaneous reading. He was anxious to 
learn what the experience of mankind taught on the subject of 
governments in any degree resembling our own. As our fathers, 
in forming the Confederation, and still more the members of the 
Convention which framed the Constitution — and especially Wash- 
ington — studied with diligence the organization of all the former 
compacts of government — those of the Netherlands, of Switzer- 
land, and ancient Greece, — so Mr. Webster directed special atten- 
tion to all the former leagues and confederacies of modern and 
ancient times, for lessons and analogies of encouragement and 
warning to his countrymen. He dwelt much on the Amphicty- 
onic league of Greece, one of the confederacies to which the 
framers of the Constitution often referred, and which is frequently 
spoken of as a species of federal government. Unhappily for 
Greece, it had little claim to that character. Founded originally 
on confraternity of religious rites, it was expanded in the lapse of 
time into a loose political association, but was destitute of all the 
powers of an organized, efficient government. On this subject Mr. 
Webster found a remark in Grote's History of Greece, which 
struck him as being of extreme significance to the people of the 
United States. " Occasionally." says Grote, " there was a partial 
pretense for the imposing title bestowed upon the Amphictyonic 
league by Cicero, ' Commune Grsecite Concilium,' but we should 
completely misinterpret Grecian History, if we regarded it as a 
federal council habitually directing, or habitually obeyed." " And 



204 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

now," said Mr. Webster, " comes a passage which ought to be writ- 
ten in letters of gold over the door of the Capitol and of every State 
Legislature : ' Had there existed any such " Commune Concilium" 
of tolerable wisdom and patriotism, and had the tendencies of the 
Hellenic mind been capable of adapting themselves to it, the whole 
course of later Grecian History would probably have been altered ; 
the Macedonian kings would have remained only as respectable 
neighbors, borrowing their civilization from Greece, and exercising 
their military energies upon Thracians and Illyrians ; while united 
Hellas might have maintained her own territory against the con- 
quering legions of Rome.' " * A wise and patriotic federal gov- 
ernment would have preserved Greece from the Macedonian 
phalanx and the Roman legions ! 

Professional and official labors engrossed Mr. Webster's time 
and left him no leisure for the execution of his meditated work 
on the Constitution — a theme which, as he would have treated it, 
tracing it back to its historical fountains and forward to its pro- 
phetic issues, seems to me, in the wide range of its topics, to 
embrace higher and richer elements of thought, for the American 
statesman and patriot, than any other not directly connected with 
the spiritual welfare of man. 

MAGNITUDE OF THE THEME. THE FUTURE OF THE UNION. 

What else is there, in the material system of the world, so won- 
derful as the concealment of the Western Hemisphere for ages 
behind the mighty vail of waters ? How could such a secret be 
kept from the foundation of the world till the end of the fifteenth 
century? What so astonishing as the concurrence, within less 
than a century, of the invention of printing, the demonstration 
of the true system of the Heavens, and this great-world discovery ? 
What so mysterious as the dissociation of the native tribes of this 
continent from the civilized and civilizable races of man ? What 
so remarkable, in political history, as the operation of the in- 
fluences — now in conflict, now in harmony — under which the 
various nations of the Old World sent their children to occupy 
the New ; great populations silently stealing into existence ; the 
wilderness of one century swarming in the next with millions; 
ascending the streams, crossing the mountains, struggling with a 
wild, hard nature, with savage foes, with rival settlements of for- 
eign powers, but ever onward, onward ? What so propitious 
as this long colonial training in the school of chartered govern- 
ment ; and then, when the fullness of time had come, what so 
majestic, amid all its vicissitudes and all its trials, as the Grand 
Separation — mutually beneficial in its final result to both parties — 
the dread appeal to arms, that venerable Continental Congress, 
the august Declaration, the strange alliance of the oldest monarchy 

* Grote's History of Greece, Vol. ii. p. 886. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 205 

of Europe with the Infant Republic? And, lastly, what so 
worthy the admiration of men and angels, as the appearance of 
him the expected ; him the Hero, raised up to conduct the mo- 
mentous conflict to its auspicious issue in the Confederation, the 
Union, the Constitution ! 

Is this a theme not unworthy of the pen and the mind of "Web- 
ster? Then consider the growth of the country, thus politically 
ushered into existence and organized under that Constitution, as 
delineated in his address on laying the corner-stone of the ex- 
tension of the Capitol; the thirteen colonies that accomplished 
the Revolution multiplied to thirty-two independent States, a single 
one of them exceeding in population the old thirteen ; the narrow 
border of settlement along the coast, fenced in by France and the 
native tribes, expanded to the dimensions of the continent ; 
Louisiana, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, California, Oregon— ter- 
ritories equal to the great monarchies of Europe — added to the 
Union ; and the two millions of population which fired the imagin- 
ation of Burke, swelled to twenty-four millions during the lifetime 
of Mr. Webster, and in seven short years, which have since 
elapsed, increased to thirty I 

With these stupendous results in his own time as the unit of 
calculation — beholding under Providence with each Decade of 
years, a new people, millions strong, emigrants in part from the 
Old World, but mainly bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, 
the children of the soil, growing up to inhabit the waste places of 
the continent, to inherit and transmit the rights and blessings 
which we have received from our fathers ; recognizing in the 
Constitution and in the Union established by it the creative in- 
fluence which, as far as human agencies go, has wrought these 
miracles of growth and progress, and which wraps up in sacred 
reserve the expansive energy with which the work is to be carried 
on and perfected, he looked forward with patriotic aspiration to 
the time when, beneath its segis, the whole wealth of our civil- 
ization would be poured out, not only to fill up the broad _ inter- 
stices of settlement, if I may so express myself, in the old thirteen, 
and their young and thriving sister States already organized in 
the West, but in the lapse of time, to found a hundred new repub- 
lics in the valley of the Missouri and beyond the Rocky Mountains, 
till our letters and our arts, our schools and our churches, our laws 
and our liberties, shall be carried from the arctic circle to the 
tropics ; " from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof." 

VIEWS OF THE PRESENT. 

This prophetic glance, not merely at the impending, but the dis- 
tant future, this reliance on the fulfillment of the great design of 
Providence, illustrated through our whole history, to lavish upon 
the people of this country the accumulated blessings of all former 
stages of human progress, made him more tolerant of the tardy 



20G 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



and irregular advances and temporary wanderings from the path of 
what he deemed a wise and sound policy than those fervid spirits 
who dwell exclusively in the present, and make less allowance for 
the gradual operation of moral influences. This was the case in 
reference to the great sectional controversy which now so sharply 
divides and so violently agitates the country. He not only confi- 
dently anticipated what the lapse of seven years since his decease 
has witnessed and is witnessing, that the newly-acquired and the 
newly-organized territories of the Union would grow up into free 
States ; but, in common with all or nearly all the statesmen of the 
last generation, he believed that free labor would ultimately pre- 
vail throughout the country. He thought he saw that in the 
operation of the same causes which have produced this result in 
the Middle and Eastern States, it was visibly taking place in the 
States north of the cotton-growing region ; and he inclined to thy 
opinion that there also, under the influence of physical and eco- 
nomical causes, free labor would eventually be found most produb ^ 
tive, and would therefore be ultimately established. 

For these reasons, bearing in mind, what all admit, that the com- 
plete solution of the mighty problem, which now so greatly tasks 
the prudence and patriotism of the wisest aud best in the land, is 
beyond the delegated powers of the General Government ; that it 
depends, as far as the States are concerned, on their independent 
legislation, and that it is, of all others, a subject in reference to 
which public opinion and public sentiment will most powerfully 
influence the law ; that much in the lapse of time, without law, is 
likely to be brought about by degrees, aud gradually done and per- 
mitted, as in Missouri, at the present day ; while nothiug is to be 
hoped from external interference, whether of exhortation or re- 
buke ; that in all human affairs controlled by self-governing com- 
munities, extreme opinions and extreme courses, on the one hand, 
generally lead to extreme opinions and extreme courses on the 
other ; and that nothing will more contribute to the earliest prac- 
ticable relief of the country from this most prolific source of con- 
flict and estrangement, than to prevent its being introduced into 
our party organizations, — he deprecated its being allowed to find a 
place among the political issues of the day, North or South ; and 
seeking a platform on which honest and patriotic men might meet 
and stand, he thought he had found it, where our fathers did, in the 
Constitution. 

It is true that, in interpreting the fundamental law on this sub- 
ject, a diversity of opinion between the two sections of the Union 
presents itself. This has ever been the case, first or last, in rela- 
tion to every great question which has divided the country. It is 
the unfailing incident of constitutions, written or unwritten ; an 
evil to be dealt with in good faith, by prudent and enlightened 
men, in both sections of the Union, seeking, as Washington sought, 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 207 

the public good, and giving expression to the patriotic common- 
sense of the people. 

Such, I have reason to believe, were the principles entertained 
by Mr. "Webster ; not certainly those best calculated to win a tem- 
porary popularity in any part of the Union, in times of passionate 
sectional agitation, which, between the extremes of opinion, leaves 
no middle ground for moderate counsels. If any one could have 
found and could have trodden such ground with success, he would 
seem to have been qualified to do it, by his transcendent talent, his 
mature experience, his approved temper and calmness, and his 
tried patriotism. If he failed of finding such a path for himself or 
the country — while we thoughtfully await what time and an all- 
wise Providence has in store for ourselves and our children — let us 
remember that his attempt was the highest and the purest which 
can engage the thoughts of a Statesman and a Patriot : Peace on 
earth, good-will toward men ; harmony and brotherly love among 
the children of our common country. 

And O, my friends, if among those who, differing from him on 
this or any other subject, have yet, with generous forgetfulness of 
that which separated you, and kindly remembrance of all that you 
held in common, come up this day to do honor to his memory, 
there are any who suppose that he cherished less tenderly than 
yourselves the great ideas of Liberty, Humanity, and Brotherhood; 
that, because he was faithful to the duties which he inferred from 
the Constitution and the Law, to which he looked for the govern- 
ment of Civil Society, he was less sensible than yourselves to the 
broader relations and deeper sympathies which unite us to our 
fellow-creatures, as brethren of one family and children of one 
heavenly Father, believe me, you do his memory a grievous wrong. 

PERSONAL CHARACTER. 

This is not the occasion to dwell upon the personal character of 
Mr. Webster, on the fascination of his social intercourse, or the 
charm of his domestic life. Something I could have said on his 
companionable disposition and habits, his genial temper, the re- 
sources and attractions of his conversation, his love of nature, 
alike in her wild and cultivated aspects, and his keen perception 
of the beauties of this fair world in which we live ; something of 
his devotion to agricultural pursuits, which, next to his profes- 
sional and public duties, formed the occupation of his life ; some- 
thing of his fondness for athletic and manly sports and exercises; 
something of his friendships, and of his attachments warmer than 
friendships — the son, the brother, the husband, and the father; 
something of the joys and the sorrows of his home ; of the strength 
of his religious convictions, his testimony to the truth of the 
Christian Revelation ; the tenderness and sublimity of the parting 
scene. Something on these topics I have elsewhere said, and may 
not here repeat. 







208 DANIEL WEBSTEE. 

Some other things, my friends, with your indulgence, I would 
say ; thoughts, memories, which crowd upon, me, too vivid to be 
repressed, too personal almost to he uttered. 

On the 17th of July, 1804, a young man from ISTew Hampshire 
arrived in Boston, all but penniless, and all but friendless. He 
was twenty -two years of age, and had come to take' the first steps 
in the career of life at the capital of New England. Three days 
after arriving in Boston he presented himself, without letters of 
recommendation, to Mr. Christopher Gore, then just returned from 
England, after an official residence of some years, and solicited a 
place in his office as a clerk. His only introduction was by a young 
man as little known to Mr. Gore as himself, and who went to pro- 
nounce his name, which he did so indistinctly as not to be heard. 
His slender figure, striking countenance, large dark eye, and massy 
brow, his general appearance indicating a delicate organization,* 
his manly carriage and modest demeanor, arrested attention and 
inspired confidence. His humble suit was granted, he was received 
into the office, and had been there a week before Mr. Gore learned 
that his name was Daniel Webster! His older brother — older 
in years, but later in entering life — (for whose education Daniel, 
while teacher of the Academy at Fryeburg, had drudged till mid- 
night in the office of the Register of Deeds), at that time taught a 
small school in Short Street (now Kingston Street), in Boston, and 
while he was in attendance at the commencement at Dartmouth, 
in 1804, to receive his degree, Daniel supplied his place. At that 
school, at the age of ten, I was then a pupil, and there commenced 
a friendship which lasted, without interruption or chill, while his 
life lasted ; of which, while mine lasts, the grateful recollection will 
never perish. From that time forward I knew, I honored, I loved 
him. I saw him at all seasons and on all occasions, in the flush 
of public triumph, in the intimacy of the fireside, in the most unre- 
served interchange of personal confidence ; in health and in sick- 
ness, in sorrow and in joy ; when early honors began to wreath his 
brow, and in after life through most of the important scenes of his 
public career. I saw him on occasions that show the manly 
strength, and, what is better, the manly weakness of the human 
heart ; and I declare this day, in the presence of Heaven and of 
men, that I never heard from him the expression of a wish unbe- 
coming a good citizen and a patriot — the utterance of word unwor- 
thy a gentleman and a Christian ; that I never knew a more gen- 
erous spirit, a safer adviser, a warmer friend. 

Do you ask me if he had faults? I answer, he was a man. He 
had some of the faults of a lofty spirit, a genial temperament, and 
a warm and generous nature ; he had none of the faults of a grov- 
eling, mean, and malignant nature. He had especially the "last 

* Description by Mrs. Eliza Buckminster Lee, Webster's Private Correspond- 
ence, i., 4::-). 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 20Q 

infirmity of noble mind," and had no doubt raised an aspiring eye 
to the highest object of political ambition. But he did it in the 
honest pride of a capacity equal to the statioD, and with a con- 
sciousness that he should reflect back the honor which it conferred. 
He might say, with Burke, that "he had no arts but honest arts;" 
and if he sought the highest honors of the state, he did it by trans- 
cendent talent, laborious service, and patriotic devotion to the 
public good. 

It was not given to him, any more than to the other members 
of the great triumvirate with whom his name is habitually associ- 
ated, to attain the object of their ambition ; but posterity will do 
them justice, and begins already to discharge the debt of respect 
and gratitude. A noble mausoleum in honor of Clay, and his statue 
by Hart, are in progress ; the statue of Calhoun, by Powers, adorns 
the Court House in Charleston, and a magnificent monument to his 
memory is in preparation ; and we present you this day, fellow- 
citizens, the Statue of "Webster, in enduring bronze, on a pedestal 
of granite from his native State, the noble countenance modeled 
from life, at the meridian of his days and his fame, and his person 
reproduced, from faithful recollection, by the oldest and most dis- 
tinguished of the living artists of the country. He sleeps by the 
multitudinous ocean, which he himself so much resembled in its 
mighty movement and its mighty repose ; but his monumental form 
shall henceforward stand sentry at the portals of the Capitol ; the 
right hand pointing to that symbol of the Union on which the left 
reposes, and his imperial gaze directed, with the Hopes of the coun- 
try, to the boundless West. In a few short years, we, whose eyes 
have rested on his majestic person, whose ears have drunk in the 
music of his clarion voice, shall have gone to our rest; but our 
children, for ages to come, as they dwell with awe-struck gaze upon 
the monumental bronze, shall say, Oh that we could have seen, oh 
that we could have heard, the great original ! 

Two hundred and twenty-nine years ago, this day, our beloved 
city received, from the General Court of the Colony, the honored 
name of Boston. On the long roll of those whom she has welcom- 
ed to her nurturing bosom is there a name which shines with a 
brighter luster than his? Seventy-two years ago, this day, the 
Constitution of the United States was tendered to the acceptance 
of the people by George Washington. Who, of all the gifted and 
patriotic of the land, that have adorned the interval, has done 
more to unfold its principles, assert its purity, and to promote its 
duration ? 

Here, then, under the cope of Heaven ; here, on this lovely em- 
inence ; here, beneath the walls of the Capitol of old Massachusetts, 
here, within the sight of those fair New England villages ; here, in 
the near vicinity of the graves of those who planted the germs of 
all this palmy growth ; here, within the sound of sacred bells, we 
raise this monument, with loving hearts, to the Statesman, the 



210 DANIEL WEBSTER. 

Patriot, the Fellow-Citizen, the Neighbor, the Friend. Long may 
it guard the approach to these halls of council ; long may it look 
out upon a prosperous country ; and, if days of trial and disaster 
should come, and the arm of flesh should fail, doubt not that the 
monumental form would descend from its pedestal, to stand in the 
front rank of the peril, and the bronze lips repeat the cry of the 
living voice — " Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and in- 
separable!" 



HENRY WARD BEECHER'S 

SERMONS 

PUBLISHED WEEKl—Y IN 

Tlie Indopencieiit 

In addition to the interesting matter contained in every successive number of 
The Independent, the Publisher is happy to announce that the Sunday Morning 
Sermons of REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER will appear exclusively in its columns 
every week. They are the only reports given to the press which receive revision 
from the Author's own hand. 

Among other Special contributors are the following well-known writers : 
Mrs. MI*MRIET BEECHER STOJWE, 
Rev. GEO. B. CHE EVER, and 
JOHJT G. JVHITTIER. 

Terms : S$ 2.00 a year, payable in advance. 

Address, JOSEPH H. RICHARDS, 

Publisher, No. 5 Beekman Street, N. Y. 
FOR SALE BY ALL NEWS AGENTS. 



SAXTOIV, BARKER & CO., 

25 Park Row, New-York, 

PUBLISH 

The Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art: 

Edited by J. Jay Smith — Established by A. J. Downing in 1846. 
It embraces within its scope, 

The Description and Cultivation of Fruit and Fruit Trees, Flowers, 
Flowering Plants and Shrubs, and all Edible Plants which are, or should 
be, grown in our Gardens. 

Gardening as an Art of Taste — Rural Architecture, etc., etc. 

Published Monthly, at $2.00 per year. An edition with Colored Plates, 
at $5.00 per year. 

Saxton, Barker & Co. also keep constantly on hand, a complete assort- 
ment of Works on Agriculture, Horticulture, Rural Art, and Domestic 
Economy. Catalogues sent upon application. Books mailed, postage 
paid, to any address, upon receipt of price. 



FOWLER & WELLS, 308 Broadway, New York, publish the following 
Popular and Scientific Journals, which afford an excellent opportunity for 
bringing before the public all subjects of general interest. 



LIFE ILLUSTRATED: 

FIRST-CLASS PICTORIAL WEEKLY NEWSPAPER, devoted to News, 
Literature, Science, and the Arts ; to Entertainment, Improvement, and 
Progress. Designed to encourage a spirit of Hope, Manliness, Self-Re- 
liance, and Activity among the people ; to point out the means of profit- 
able economy ; and to discuss and illustrate the leading ideas of the day ; 
to record all signs of progress ; and to advocate political and industrial 
rights for all classes. One of the best Family papers in the world. 



PRICE BY THE YEAR. 

Single Copy, one year $2.00 

Five Copies, " 7.00 

Ten Copies, " 10.00 



PRICE FOR HALF A YEAR. 

Single Copy, half year, $1.00 

Five Copies, " 4.00 

Ten Copies, " 5.00 



WATER-CURE JOURNAL : 

DEVOTED TO HYDROPATHY, ITS PHILOSOPHY AND PRACTICE : to 

Physiology and Anatomy — with illustrative Engravings ; to Dietetics, Ex- 
ercise, Clothing, Occupations, and those Laws which govern Life and 
Health. Published Monthly, in convenient form for binding. 

PRICE BY THE YEAR. PRICE FOR HALF A YEAR. 

Single Copv, one year $1.00 Single Copy, half year $0.51) 

Five Copies, " 3.00 Five Copies, " 1.50 

Ten Copies, " 5.00 Ten Copies, " 2.50 



PHRENOLOGICAL JOURNAL : 

A REPOSITORY OF SCIENCE, LITERATURE, AND GENERAL INTEL- 
LIGENCE : devoted to Phrenology, Education, Psychology, Mechanism, 
Architecture, and to all those Progressive Measures which are calculated to 
Reform, Elevate, and Improve Mankind. Illustrated with numerous Por- 
traits, and other engravings. 

PRICE BY THE YEAR. ■ PRICE FOR HALF YEAR. 

Single Copy, one year $1 00 | Single Copy, half year $0 50 

Five Copies, " 8 00 I Five Copies, " 150 

Ten Copies, " 5 00 | Ten Copies, " 2 50 



Life Illustrated will be sent to new subscribers three months, in clubs of 
twenty copies for twenty-five cents each. Subscriptions commence at any 
time. 

Please address FOWLER & WELLS, 308 Broadway, New York. 

jvgp$3._FoR Three Dollar*, in advance, a copy of Life Illustrated 
(weekly), The Phrenological Journal, and The Water-Cure Journal, will 
be sent a year to one address. Now is the time to subscribe and form Clubs. 



W46 






,0^ c o • « 











..V 



dm? J>1 



fafifc; 



" 





<y% 



?£W&>S. '***. ^ oV<^I£V" ^ <* 







* ^ ^ 




V-0' 



V* V "°^ 




'bK 



*°^ 



















• A V *^ 






